By chowdary
Published: June 4, 2007
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My father's great grand father was a zameendar, a.k.a a landlord. I am not going write about him now. I am going to talk about my mother's great grand father. Who was he? Was he a freedom fighter who fought with his blood and sweat for freedom of India? No, he was not. Who was he then? He was a  thief ! Was he a swashbuckling Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave it to poor? No, he was not. He just happened to be a lazy bum, with all due respect, who stole for his own comforts. Yet, he was liked by people for his marksmanship at his work, that is stealing. I am going to give one of such accounts.

It were the days of British Raj. One of her majesty's Indian Administrative Service official, to cut in short, the District Collector visited my mother's ancestral village which was few miles from the town of Vijayawada. He has heard of my mother's great grand father, Mr. Gantayya, before. So, he met with Gantayya. The Collector said to Gantayya that he wouldn't be lucky as always and he challenged that he wouldn't be successful if the necessary precautions were taken. The argument went on like that until finally, they had decided to put it to test.

The Collector and his wife were camping at the village. Gantayya's task was to steal some thing from that camp, during that night which was being heavily guarded. To be precise, the night gown which  the Collector's wife was wearing that night! As it grew darker, the Collector's wife went inside her quarters which were being heavily guarded with soldiers on all sides. It was about past midnight, and Gantayya slowly approached the camp area.

He carefully observed every thing, the positions, the movements of the guards in great detail. He slowly climbed on to a tree and then on to the top of the tent in which the Collector's wife was sleeping. These were not the fragile modern day camping tents which we take on trails. Along with him, Gantayya took bottle of water, to say, its predecessor. He slowly opened the cap and poured the water onto the canvas top the of tent, directly above where  the Collector's wife was sleeping.

The Collector's wife's night gown became wet . Thinking that a cat had urinated on her, she went to the next room and changed her clothes. Wearing a new set of clothes, she again went back to sleep. Meanwhile, Gantayya climbed down into the tent, grabbed the clothes, again climbed up and took off, without being noticed by the guards on duty.

Next day morning, he went to the Collector and presented him the night gown which the Collector's wife was wearing the night before. The Collector was so much amazed by the skills of Gantayya that, he presented him a sword. This sword is now in Hyderabad with one of my mother's distant relatives. The end!

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